US Military Worried About Climate Change
November 14, 2008
Washington Times|by Kelly Hearn

As a new administration committed to addressing climate change takes office, intelligence and defense officials are laying plans to address the national security implications of a warmer planet.

In recent months, U.S. military planners have discussed the impact on personnel, equipment and installations of extreme weather events, rising ocean temperatures, shifts in rainfall patterns and stresses on natural resources.

Among the concerns: 63 U.S. coastal military facilities and several nuclear reactors are in danger of flooding from storm surges, said Tom Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

President-elect Barack Obama next month will receive a key intelligence report, Global Trends 2025. Sources who reviewed the document for the government but asked not to be named said the report gives top priority to climate change.

The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a Pentagon-funded think tank, issued a report last year that called climate change a "serious national security threat."

The U.S. intelligence apparatus has worked up the first national intelligence assessment to focus on the implications of climate change for U.S. national security by 2030.

"There is increasing attention on the hard security side of climate change, and officials in the Pentagon are starting to take the topic a lot more seriously," said Richard Moss, a climate-change specialist with the World Wildlife Fund.

Military installations. Coastal military facilities are threatened by rising sea levels and more frequent major, damaging weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

Although Mr. Fingar declined to give details apart from the number of installations in peril, a Pentagon official told The Washington Times that the Pentagon has commissioned a network of scientists to create a model for predicting the impact of storm surges and sea-level rises on military facilities on the Gulf Coast, in the Mid-Atlantic region and in Southern California.

The Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), the Pentagon's environmental science and research program, is leading the effort. Its findings are expected to help the Defense Department better manage about 30 million acres of land under its care, said the Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

Environmental refugees. Developing countries -- already saddled with poverty, unresolved conflicts and poor governance -- are at risk of more instability caused by people fleeing drought and catastrophic storms.

"Migrants from Africa will flow to Europe, while the U.S. will see migrants from Mexico, Central and South America," he said.

Terrorism. Shifts in ecological systems are most likely in places that are already breeding grounds for extremism. In many African states, climate-related stresses are "a main contributor to instability," Mr. Fingar told Congress this summer. "We judge that sub-Saharan Africa will continue to be the most vulnerable to climate change because of multiple environmental, economic, political and social stresses."

Humanitarian intervention. As extreme weather events pummel more population centers, the Pentagon will increasingly be asked to provide humanitarian support. "More and more, climate change will require mass mobilizations of the military to cope with humanitarian disasters," said Joshua Busby, assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

For the Pentagon, that means increases in large-scale logistics operations such as airlift, sealift and delivery of food, water and medical supplies. The Defense Department "has to ask if our forces are adequate enough to respond to several more Katrinas," said retired U.S. Army Gen. Paul Kern.

Pandemics. As certain regions become warmer, researchers say, the range of mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects will expand. "Pandemic diseases not only prompt humanitarian catastrophes, they can directly threaten deployed U.S. troops," said Sherri Goodman, general counsel for CNA.

Arctic competition. Perhaps the most dramatic climate-related geopolitical issues involve a melting of the Arctic ice cap. Scott Borgerson, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, reported in the journal Foreign Affairs this year that the area covered by sea ice shrank by more than 1 million square miles during summer 2007, reducing the size of the Arctic ice cap to half of what it was in 1958.

Nations bordering the Arctic, including Canada and Russia, are staking claim to the region's oil and fishing resources, while commercial ships are seeking new Arctic routes that could shift the dynamics of global trade.

"This is not just a foreign policy issue," said Gen. Farrell. "It is a national security issue."

Environmental researchers say the next administration has to confront the problem head-on instead of simply preparing humanitarian responses. Mr. Busby said many risks should be handled through nonmilitary approaches, such as better building codes, early warning systems, drought-resistant crops, storm protection and sea walls, and reforestation measures.

"Climate change makes it more likely that we will either get multiple crises in different locations, or even multiple crisis in the same locations," said Marc Levy, deputy director of Colombia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network. "We're in the early stage of living with climate changes, but as concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions rise, we stand to see the equivalent of what the army worries about with fighting multiple wars: a string of bad events, of landslides, tornadoes and hurricanes."

Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat who spearheaded efforts to convince Congress that the intelligence community should evaluate climate change as a security threat, said she is finally seeing shifts in official attitudes.

"When I brought the issue up, some lawmakers two years ago made fun," she said. "They felt that a so-called environmental issue didn't deserve to be blended with national security. But those attitudes are changing."

Although multiple international studies link climate change to human consumption of fossil fuels, some scientists are skeptical about the connection.

"Most of the recent national-security-related reports examining the climate issue have taken the models from the U.N. at face value. They look at the worst-case scenarios and project what the impacts would be on national security without regard to the underlying data," said Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican.

Mr. Levy agreed. "It is helpful to have a degree of skepticism," he said. "It's our job as citizens to dig a little below surface and see how hard the evidence really is."

Gen. Kern said time is of the essence.

"It's the kind of crisis where you wake up and it has already engulfed you," he said. "It is something that's been moving steadily upwards. But because the change is gradual, and there's been a lot of debate on the topic, people have tended to push it off."

....President-elect Barack Obama next month will receive a key intelligence report, Global Trends 2025.... We cannot even predict the weather three days from now, much less years from now. Spare me. 8p

Sodar

11-18-2008, 01:15 PM

Why does a Canadian seem to be so concerned with the US? Every post he makes is about the US!

JimN

11-18-2008, 01:35 PM

When some of the info comes from someone "who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press.", does it mean that it's accurate? Obviously, this is one of the reasons he's not freakin' authorized to speak to the press in the first place. If you want to test someone's discretion, tell them something that you want them to "leak" and see how fast it gets out. Since this guy isn't authorized, does it make sense to even tell them anything that's classified? Not to me.

The climate changes. It has for millennia and it will continue to do this but nowhere does it address how much effect humans have on it. To think we can hit the brakes and turn the climate around is stupidity in action. Nothing we do is so drastic that it changes the global temperature quickly and there aren't enough zeros to show how many BTUs it would take for a single event to raise it by half of one degree in a short time.

If your point was to poke us with yet another stick, save it. Talk to us about boats and skiing but stop being a stone in our shoe.

Look at pollution contribution from India, Russia and China before you come here to tell us that it's our fault. Better yet, do something that actually helps.

flipper

11-18-2008, 01:48 PM

Why does a Canadian seem to be so concerned with the US? Every post he makes is about the US!

I was thinking the same thing. Nothing good going on up there I guess. Maybe he wants to be an american?

Jesus_Freak

11-18-2008, 01:53 PM

...To think we can hit the brakes and turn the climate around is stupidity in action. Nothing we do is so drastic that it changes the global temperature quickly and there aren't enough zeros to show how many BTUs it would take for a single event to raise it by half of one degree in a short time.... This is so well put it brings tears to my eyes.:) The only thing I will add is what I have discussed before and that it is not just the atmosphere we are talking about. We would have to have some impact on the entire planet's mass/volume. The energy required to change the planet 1° is simply earth_volume*earth_density*earth_heat capacity. There are enough zeros, be we cannot impact it.

Also, this does not include the fact that we have no control over the sun or its massively fluctuating energy input. In case we have forgotten, the earth has absolutely no source of self-sustaining energy. It is slowly cooling in space (from a time and initial energy input that we wont get into now). The only energy input is from the sun and its nuclear reactions.

Jorski

11-18-2008, 01:55 PM

Your responses are about what I expected. The point is, this is something we all (every country) will have to deal with on many levels.

Usually, your responses to science in this matter are a mix of anger, denial, even a call to defend against socialism. Now your own military is realizing the seriousness of the problem, and your responses range from, "you can't believe that", to attacking my citizenship, to trotting out old disproven arguments against climate change.

Whatever. Time will tell.

Skipper

11-18-2008, 02:13 PM

In the words of my Airborne forefathers: ........NUTS......

Maristar210

11-18-2008, 02:32 PM

The moral of the story is most here don't like you shoving your one sided liberal beliefs down our throats. We don't tell you what to say or think. We allow you to speak but when we don't agree you call us names. Please sell your boat and buy a Bayliner. There's lotsa people like you here www.baylinerownersclub.com/forum

bigmac

11-18-2008, 02:34 PM

Not sure I see the big deal here. That there is a climate change occurring is obvious and the science is compelling (although certainly not indisputable). That that climate change is being caused by human activity is far less obvious, and science behind it is shakey, highly disputable and rife with political spin. I certainly don't perceive that the article addresses any proposed cause of global warming, only that it exists and how it might affect strategy of a global player like the USA.

This whole article is sort of obvious. We don't know how long this climate change will be operative, and the US military would be negligent to not be evaluating the strategic implications if it should turn out to be prolonged.

Maristar210

11-18-2008, 02:34 PM

Jorski

Do you think I am a little rich on the oil?

flipper

11-18-2008, 02:38 PM

Nope, that's a well lubed machine

Jorski

11-18-2008, 02:41 PM

First of all, I posted an article about your military, not my beliefs, but why let facts get in the way.

Secondly, I didn't call you guys any names any time. The only name-calling is in fact in your post Maristar, where you call me a liberal. As usual, your angry response is shoot the messenger rather than to talk about issue directly.

Good luck.

Maristar210

11-18-2008, 02:45 PM

First of all, I posted an article about your military, not my beliefs, but why let facts get in the way.

Secondly, I didn't call you guys any names any time. The only name-calling is in fact in your post Maristar, where you call me a liberal. As usual, your angry response is shoot the messenger rather than to talk about issue directly.

Good luck.

So now calling you a liberal, which you have said in the past, you are, is name calling?

Do you think I need to add some more oil to the tank Jorski or does that look about right?

Finally why bother posting articles produced about a country you don't live in?

If you really want to help regulate India and China. They are dispiciable in this regard.

So what about the oil? Not enought or too much?

You're right it's too light.....

bigmac

11-18-2008, 02:45 PM

Jorski

Do you think I am a little rich on the oil?

Seriously Steve...what's the point of this post?

Maristar210

11-18-2008, 02:48 PM

Seriously Steve...what's the point of this post?

I am afraid I would have to defer this question to Jorski. Sorry BigMac.

flipper

11-18-2008, 02:51 PM

Seriously Steve...what's the point of this post?

That's one of Jorski's pics isn't it? I'm not sure, but I think it is. I've seen it here before, just not positive where. If I'm wrong, sorry.